Yang Guifei, Wade-Giles romanization Yang Kuei-fei (died 756, Mawei, Sichuan province, China) notorious beauty and concubine of the great Tang emperor Xuanzong (reigned 712–756). Because of her the emperor is said to have neglected his duties, and the Tang dynasty (618–907) was greatly weakened by a rebellion that ensued. Her story has been the subject of many outstanding Chinese poems and dramas, including “Changhen’ge” (“A Song of Everlasting Sorrow”), a narrative poem by Bai Juyi; Wutongyu (after 1262; “Rain on the Phoenix Tree”), a Yuan dynastyzaju play by Bai Pu; and Changshengdian (1688; “The Palace of Eternal Youth”), a play by Hong Sheng, one of the most-notable Qing dynasty playwrights.

The daughter of a high official, she was one of the few obese women in Chinese history to have been considered beautiful. She became a concubine to Xuanzong’s son, but the 60-year-old emperor found the girl so desirable that he forced his son to relinquish her. Soon her two sisters were admitted into the imperial harem, and her cousin Yang Guozhong became the first minister of the empire.

Through Yang’s influence, An Lushan, a cunning young general of Turkish origin, rose to great prominence. Yang adopted him as her legal son and is said to have made him her lover. With such powerful patronage, An Lushan came to control an army of 200,000. He was jealous of the power of Yang Guozhong and soon turned against the emperor, leading a great uprising (the An Lushan rebellion) against him. When the capital was captured in 756, Xuanzong and his court were forced to flee to the south. On the road the imperial soldiers became enraged with members of the Yang family, whom they blamed for the debacle, and executed both Yang and her cousin.

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...province of Hebei, captured the eastern capital, Luoyang, early in 756, and took the main Tang capital, Chang’an, in July of the same year. The emperor fled to Sichuan, and on the road his consort Yang Guifei and other members of the Yang faction who had dominated his court were killed. Shortly afterward the heir apparent, who had retreated to Lingwu in the northwest, himself usurped the...

...time and who had also excluded members of the royal family from politics, faced a series of succession plots. In 745 he fell deeply under the influence of a new favourite, the imperial concubine Yang Guifei. In 751–752 one of her relatives, Yang Guozhong, thanks to her influence with the emperor, rapidly rose to rival Li Linfu for supreme power. After Li’s death in 752 Yang Guozhong...

The emperor also came under the influence of another favourite, the consort Yang Guifei. During the later years of his reign, the Xuanzong emperor became completely infatuated with her and heaped honours on members of her family. One of these relatives, her cousin Yang Guozhong, rose rapidly to rival even Li Linfu in power and, on the latter’s death in 752, replaced him as the dominant chief...